Views on war, on words, on maps - #mappinghistory - and language, and life, and culture and echoes of the past I’ve found loitering in the present.
The first time I got lost on purpose, I was nine years old. Home was, and still is, in North Norfolk, where sea fret kisses samphire, big skies lift the spirits, and muddy country lanes never run straight from one bend to the next. It’s a fertile landscape, one that fires up the imagination. My well-meaning parents had encouraged curiosity - yes, you can play the bassoon; no, that’s not how you milk a goat - and The Eagle Has Landed had long since elbowed its way to the front of my bookshelf. I was convinced, thirteen Nazi paratroopers were buried two villages over, and, better still, the book’s endpapers had a map.
I couldn’t remember seeing signs to Studley Constable. That didn’t matter. Starry-eyed, hardback in hand, I set out, convinced by indisputable history and undeniable geography. It took less than half an hour to be apprehended in my pyjamas, and gently disillusioned by my – quite frankly – distraught parents. The die was cast. I’ve been getting lost on purpose ever since.
North Norfolk is still the place that I call home. An English county that gifts great podunkery to the world; I love it dearly. Slow You Down is a philosophy by which to live life. Still, little compares to digging out the big boots; packing the must-haves; and then hiking off into the margins on a hunch, or two.
For me, getting lost on purpose means seeking out the ‘also-stories’, too often lost in the footnotes. Mapping history plays a big part in that. It took to discover what I like doing best, and to start doing it on purpose. Catherine-wheeling, dotted lines bring me greatest joy, joining this or that to the other, and pulling the past into the present. By day, I’m an itinerant writer; by night I am an imminent-author. There’s a lot of mapmaker research happening, and I’ve never enjoyed writing about something, so much.
When I'm not on tour, you’ll find me working under the guise of Rentaquill. That involves making the complex simple for people who’d rather not hold a pen. When it comes to les mots juste for my own purpose, I applaud the ethos of the late, great LJK Setright: we live a short life, and it’s a shame not to use all the language we can, to describe it well. Here, you’ll find me spewing forth with gaudy, alliterative abandon: a sybaritic and perpetual work in progress.
Much like me.
